Training · The 1689 Baptist Confession
Baptism and the Lord's supper
Two paragraphs covering what the two ordinances have in common.
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Card 1 of 3
How many ordinances are there, and why are they not called sacraments?
Two - baptism and the Lord's supper - and it calls them ordinances rather than sacraments.
The count rules out the five others Rome recognises, and the word is a deliberate choice. Ordinance keeps the weight on Christ having commanded them. Sacrament, by the time the 1689 was written, carried a freight of ideas about the rite itself conveying grace that the Baptists did not want to import.
Confession 28.1
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Card 2 of 3
What kind of thing are baptism and the Lord's supper?
Ordinances of positive and sovereign institution - appointed by Christ as the only lawgiver, to continue in his church to the end of the world.
Positive here means instituted rather than deduced. Nobody would have arrived at either practice by reasoning about what would be meaningful; they exist because they were commanded, which is also why their form is not ours to adjust.
'So go to people everywhere and help them become my followers. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.'
'Teach them to do everything I've told you. And remember, I'm with you always, right up to the end of the world.'
Matthew 28:19-20Confession 28.1
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Card 3 of 3
Who may administer baptism and the Lord's supper?
Only those qualified and called to it, according to Christ's commission.
The confession does not develop this further. In practice it means the church's recognised officers rather than anyone who feels moved to.
Confession 28.2